Here’s the choice: Spend $2.2 billion to build a gas-fired peaker plant that will operate for just 3% of the hours of the year? Or select a basket of zero-carbon solutions that will keep our lights on at less than half the cost without increasing our dependence on American gas imports, which already constitute more than 70% of our gas supplies for electricity generation and heating.
Which option would you vote for?
It seems like a no brainer, but Premier Ford and our publicly owned Ontario Power Generation (OPG) strongly prefer the polluting gas option and want to build a new 430 megawatt (MW) gas plant in the eastern Ontario Town of Napanee.
Here’s a quick look at some alternatives to building a gas-fired peaker plant that will sit idle for 97% of the time:
Commercial, Institutional and Industrial Demand Response
The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has contracted with commercial, institutional and industrial consumers to shift some of their demands from peak to off-peak periods during the summer of 2025 and the winter of 2025/26. These payments are 80% to 92% lower than the IESO’s proposed payments to OPG to build the Napanee peaker plant.
Residential Peak Perks Program
In May 2023, the IESO established the Peak Perks program to turn down the thermostats of residential air-conditioners and heat pumps by up to two degrees Celsius on hot summer weekdays (not weekends and holidays) between June 1 and September 30. These payments are 76% lower than the IESO’s proposed payments to OPG to build the Napanee peaker plant.
Summer Peak Power Imports from Hydro Quebec
Quebec’s demand for electricity peaks during cold winter nights since most of its homes are heated with electric baseboards. As a result, Hydro Quebec has a huge surplus of electricity generation capacity available for export to Ontario in the summer. In December 2024, the IESO contracted with Hydro Quebec to import 400 MW of capacity during the summer of 2025 at a cost that is 80% lower than the IESO’s proposed payments to OPG for the Napanee peaker plant.
Battery Storage
On May 9, 2024, the IESO announced that it had procured almost 1,800 MW of battery storage at a cost that is 60% lower than the proposed payments to OPG to build the Napanee gas peaker plant.
All of these options are ripe for expansion. We can pay a slightly higher rate to encourage more industrial demand shifting and still save oodles of money; we can do a lot more to promote enrolment in the Peak Perks program, which currently has only a small fraction of Ontario households signed up; we can increase our summer electricity imports from Quebec with our existing transmission lines; and we can further expand our usage of increasingly low-cost battery storage (and get back to building low-cost renewable power generation to supply them).
Ontario has many, many better choices than wasting $2.2 billion on a gas plant which will increase our vulnerability to attacks from President Trump.
For more information, click here to read our letter to OPG’s CEO Nicolle Butcher.
Please send your own message to OPG’s CEO, Nicolle Butcher, and ask her to cancel her plans to build a giant gas plant which will needlessly raise our electricity rates, increase smog in Napanee, threaten our climate, and jeopardize our national security.